Quotes of the day

posted at 8:01 pm on August 4, 2013 by Allahpundit

The White House said top administration officials gathered late Saturday over a terror threat that provoked the State Department to close more than 20 diplomatic posts and issue a worldwide travel alert.

National Security Adviser Susan Rice chaired a meeting with 12 administration officials including the secretaries of State, Defense and Homeland Security and the directors of the FBI, CIA and NSA, according to a White House statement…

The State Department’s travel alert said the threat was focused particularly in the Middle East and North Africa and was “possibly occurring in or emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.” Yemen has become a central focus of the warnings.

***

The terror threat prompting the U.S. government to close nearly two dozen embassies and consulates Sunday is the most specific, credible threat information in years, CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reports.

What authorities don’t have is the date, the timing or the target of the attack, which is why they have taken such an approach to warning potential targets, Miller reports.

***

On the day that almost two dozen U.S. embassies and consulates across North Africa and the Middle East are closed following the identification of a significant threat from an al-Qaeda affiliate, a senior U.S. official is providing new details about the communications intercepted from the terrorists, telling ABC News that al-Qaeda operatives could be heard talking about an upcoming attack. The official described the terrorists as saying the planned attack is “going to be big” and “strategically significant.”

“The part that is alarming is the confidence they showed while communicating and the air of certainty,” the official said, adding that the group – Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – appeared to have a media plan for after the attack…

“We do not know whether they mean an embassy, an airbase, an aircraft, trains,” the official said…

The official also said authorities were stunned that the group broke “operational security” – meaning they talked likely knowing it would be picked up by intercepts.

***

The chatter among al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula operatives had gone on for weeks but increased in the last few days, the officials said…

The warnings also come as news has surfaced that al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has appointed the head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wahishi, as his overall general manager of the terror network, Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation said…

Over the past month, prison breaks have taken place in nine Interpol member nations, the global police organization said in an alert this weekend.

“With suspected Al Qaeda involvement in several of the breakouts, which led to the escape of hundreds of terrorists and other criminals, the INTERPOL alert requests the Organization’s 190 member countries’ assistance in order to determine whether any of these recent events are coordinated or linked,” the group said in the statement Saturday…

The administration hasn’t answered McCormack’s question. In light of al Qaeda’s resurgence in Iraq, our withdrawal from Afghanistan, our fecklessness with respect to Syria, Libya, and elsewhere–and now the travel alert warning about the “potential for terrorist attacks, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa” and Sunday’s closing of 22 embassies across the Muslim world–the answer is becoming depressingly clear: Rebalance is a euphemism for retreat.

“When you look at this map of U.S. embassies that are closed, twenty-two of them, most of them across the Muslim world, when you hear this global warning to all Americans to take care, what do you think that says?” Crowley asked. “Since the mission of terrorists is to terrorize, in some sense do you feel as if they’ve already won?”

“When you look at this map of U.S. embassies that are closed, twenty-two of them, most of them across the Muslim world, when you hear this global warning to all Americans to take care, what do you think that says?”
–
“World leaders should unite to end anti-Christian persecution, Vladimir Putin says.”

“Speaking at a meeting with Orthodox Christian leaders in Moscow last week, the Russian President said he noted “with alarm” that “in many of the world’s regions, especially in the Middle East and in North Africa inter-confessional tensions are mounting, and the rights of religious minorities are infringed, including Christians and Orthodox Christians.”

If there is a secular leader of Christendom today it is a Russian KGB man who may be a thug but on basic issues is on the right side, unlike Obama.

Putin is basically for Christianity; Obama helps to put it under a cultural siege. Putin is trying to get Russians to have more babies; Obama favors gay marriage, and mass immigration to crowd out white Americans. Putin thinks we should confront anti-Christian persecution; Obama talks up the legitimacy of Muslim anti-Christian grievance-mongering, and tries to destabilize any Muslim regime that is relatively tolerant of Christians.

So I think that in the age of Obama, American embassies aren’t doing any good anyway.

And frankly things weren’t so great under Bush either, when the State Department would respond to Muslim intolerance of Western free speech by encouraging Americans, not Muslim rioters, to shut up.

Good Morning, Patriots! “A day after 9/11, we are reminded that a new tower rises above the New York skyline, but al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and bin Laden is dead,” – President Barack Hussein Obama September 12, 2012
“Obama’s Report of Al-Qaeda’s Death Was Greatly Exaggerated”My take.

So whatever happened to the gun-grabbing rants on Morning Schmo? I thought outrage over that was going to bring the GOP down!

For that matter, is there any segment on the show that isn’t based on commie outrage and anger over some issue or another? I think even Mika would end up shutting up for a change if forced to comment on an uplifting or inspirational story.

Al Qaeda is on the run!
-dear leader

cmsinaz on August 5, 2013 at 6:30 AM

On the run indeed. Which, of course, is why our government is cowering this morning. The world knows that this rat-eared bastard will not stand up to radical Islam and it makes us all that much less safe.

But it brings up an interesting problem for the administration. Was Benghazi another case of workplace violence?

That used to be funny. Now we get much more absurd claims from Jay Carney on a daily basis. Obamacare is super-awesome and right on schedule. The government has been completely transparent. There are no real scandals in DC just made up partisan ones by those evil Republicans……

National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
Just let that sink in for a bit, then try to figure out who will be the next head of the Department of Homeland Security.
Hint: Mo, Larry and Curly aren’t available.

That was so last September when the rat-eared coward was running for re-election. The bastard has a really bad record on foreign affairs and national security so he played up “getting” OBL, outright lied about the Arab Spring, covered up the shame that is Benghazi, and went on the record denying that Islamic terrorism is on the rise.

So that brings us today where our embassies and consulates in the region are cowering in fear of attack. The administration doesn’t have any interest in standing up to Islamic terrorism. And we are all less safe as a result.

National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
Just let that sink in for a bit, then try to figure out who will be the next head of the Department of Homeland Security.
Hint: Mo, Larry and Curly aren’t available.

justltl on August 5, 2013 at 7:09 AM

Well it won’t be Susan Rice if that is what you are hinting at. The only reason she is in her current job is that any nomination would be DOA in the Senate and the administration does not want the woman who lied her ass off for weeks about the cause of Benghazi speaking under oath about those talking points she gave on the Sunday talk shows.

But, it can be said with certainty that the next head of the DHS will be a political crony with virtually no experience in Homeland Security issues. Just like the worthless incumbent.

the elite gop thinks he’s doing a heckuva job with closing those embassies…

cmsinaz on August 5, 2013 at 7:14 AM

There really isn’t a good choice here. Terrorism has been ignored for five years now. Remember- the rat-eared bastard claims that there hasn’t been one instance of Islamic terrorism since the 9/11/01 atrocities.

If the embassies and consulates stayed open in the wake of a perceived threat (all to spoil dear leader’s birthday) then there would be criticism that they didn’t do more. Fighting terrorism is incremental and you have to be constantly vigilant. You simply can not spend five years wasting money on things like electric charging stations for the embassy in Vienna and then react in shock when the Cairo embassy is overrrun by Al Qaeda!

morning joe wants to make sure you know that he has a 95% conservative rating while bashing GOP, so don’t be calling him a RINO

cmsinaz on August 5, 2013 at 7:23 AM

Who has a 95% conservative rating? Schmo? He’s a pundit, even if he has a “rating” it is meaningless because he isn’t in Congress voting on legislation. That little adventure ended for him when a dead woman was found in his office!

But seriously, you sure he didn’t say “95% conservative ranting” because that really would make a lot more sense! ;0

morning joe wants to make sure you know that he has a 95% conservative rating while bashing GOP, so don’t be calling him a RINO

cmsinaz on August 5, 2013 at 7:23 AM

That would be the Morning Joe who filled out the NRA form with “out of my cold dead hands!” I suspect.
Not the Moaning Schmoe who is scared to death when MSNBC fires him that he has burnt every one of his bridges.

“When you look at this map of U.S. embassies that are closed, twenty-two of them, most of them across the Muslim world, when you hear this global warning to all Americans to take care, what do you think that says?”
–
“World leaders should unite to end anti-Christian persecution, Vladimir Putin says.”

“Speaking at a meeting with Orthodox Christian leaders in Moscow last week, the Russian President said he noted “with alarm” that “in many of the world’s regions, especially in the Middle East and in North Africa inter-confessional tensions are mounting, and the rights of religious minorities are infringed, including Christians and Orthodox Christians.”

If there is a secular leader of Christendom today it is a Russian KGB man who may be a thug but on basic issues is on the right side, unlike Obama.

Putin is basically for Christianity; Obama helps to put it under a cultural siege. Putin is trying to get Russians to have more babies; Obama favors gay marriage, and mass immigration to crowd out white Americans. Putin thinks we should confront anti-Christian persecution; Obama talks up the legitimacy of Muslim anti-Christian grievance-mongering, and tries to destabilize any Muslim regime that is relatively tolerant of Christians.

So I think that in the age of Obama, American embassies aren’t doing any good anyway.

And frankly things weren’t so great under Bush either, when the State Department would respond to Muslim intolerance of Western free speech by encouraging Americans, not Muslim rioters, to shut up.

David Blue on August 5, 2013 at 6:38 AM

Pretty amazing, isn’t it? If I were Putin I’d be looking at America and thinking this country is going to bring the world to WWIII. What is Obama compared to either of the leaders of Russia or China? And do you think either of those countries want Islam controlling the world? But who is right now the major nation sending arms to terrorists? It’s the US.

Obama, the Democrat party and RINOs are screwing over the entire world. While all these resources are being used to collect intelligence on all of us.. while the NSA, IRS, FBI, TSA and every other agency out there is fixated on conservatives, TEA parties, pro-life groups, libertarians and every other average American.. we are ignoring the real threat of radical Islam. Heck.. the man in charge of all these agencies said last year AL-Quada was on the run. Obama considers some Young Republican Club on campus more of a security threat than he does radical Islam…… and who is our government monitoring? The Young Republicans on campus and not freaking radical Islam! Who is TSA grouping at the airports? Old white people in wheelchairs, Nuns and young pretty white girls!

Who did Obama just grant easy breezy status to last year so they don’t have to worry so much about TSA? Saudi Arabia!

And now here we are all being told there is some kind of major threat out there somewhere that equals to 9/11! And they don’t know when or where!

And if something were to happen somewhere.. what are the odds that crisis would be used as an excuse to further turn America into a police state.. while continuing to ignore Islam. And the RINO’s and Republican leadership would all eagerly go along! The very people who caused the freaking problems to begin with are the freaking ones who will campaign to fix them! Only there will be no fix! Just more of the same!